ばか！バカ！　馬鹿ー月！

Not sure about the Kanji for this, but as an editor I often come across this word and feel that it isn't the correct way to say it in English. Maybe they look at you as coming into society when you finish school, in Japan, but in the western world this seems ridiculous (at least for me), so what's a better way to translate it? Or is the word used just because we don't have a phrase that compare, in English?

It'd probably be good to list a few examples of what you're talking about, or at least describe the general context; I probably don't have an answer for you anyways, but at the moment I'm not sure what kind of usage of society you're referring to.

Cthaeh wrote:It'd probably be good to list a few examples of what you're talking about, or at least describe the general context; I probably don't have an answer for you anyways, but at the moment I'm not sure what kind of usage of society you're referring to.

Just an example.
"You are about to finish high school now and enter the society, my son."
My answer would have been "What are you talking about, haven't I always been a part of the society?"

"You are about to finish high school now and enter the society, my son."
My answer would have been "What are you talking about, haven't I always been a part of the society?"

Remove the definite article the, and you'll have the right English meaning for "society": a highly structured system of human organization for large-scale community living that normally furnishes protection, continuity, security, and a national identity for its members, characterized by its dominant economic class or form (definition #5 with #4). The phrase "enter society" in this sense means to enter the predominant social class (adulthood, the workforce, the voting population, etc.) from a non-predominant social class (high-schooler), not from "society" in general.

KLSymph wrote:

"You are about to finish high school now and enter the society, my son."
My answer would have been "What are you talking about, haven't I always been a part of the society?"

Remove the definite article the, and you'll have the right English meaning for "society": a highly structured system of human organization for large-scale community living that normally furnishes protection, continuity, security, and a national identity for its members, characterized by its dominant economic class or form (definition #5 with #4). The phrase "enter society" in this sense means to enter the predominant social class (adulthood, the workforce, the voting population, etc.) from a non-predominant social class (high-schooler), not from "society" in general.

I got that, I just say that normally speaking, you ARE a part of (the) society from your birth. Being a member of (the) society isn't restricted to age, work or anything else. I can hardly see how it's possible to narrow it down in any way in western culture.

What you're describing is not "society" as the term is commonly used, but a more general classification such as "humanity". In common usage, "society" can be used to demarcate not only by age and work, but by all sorts of arbitrary qualities that describe particular communities. High society. Polite society. Debate society. The Humane Society. Looking at the dictionary definitions, I would even say that the word "society" exists primarily to separate the human population into subgroups. That use is certainly extremely common in Western discourse.

Depending on the exact context, the phrase "adult society" may fit better than "society" (it has a bit more connotation towards the topic of working/getting a job, and/or being more mature). It is the context I guessed based on the brief example; but as KLSymph discussed above, it's just one possible subset.